Compendium of Weird

So many years after the demise of The Revillos, can there be any music rotting in the vaults that hasn’t already been regurgitated? I thought we had pretty much exhausted our spare tunes with the From the Freezer CD back in 1996. But, shortly before he passed away, I convened with guitarist Kid Krupa to review some of our still-parked material, and we were encouraged enough to revisit the exercise.

As we made our selection, the brief we gave ourselves was to not present yet more versions of our already over-represented songs like Motorbike Beat or whatever, but instead to showcase as many rare, bizarre, unreleased out-takes or alternative versions as possible. This compilation has only been possible by sifting through every one of my boxes of tapes from the shed and the attic to rediscover such oddities. I also checked tracks from some other band members and associates. Understandably, the sonic quality of most of this material reflects its provenance, yet their patent rarity warrants these tracks’ inclusion: indeed, almost all the material is culled from solitary existing cassette sources. With a lot of damage, including glitches, drop-outs and missing sections, many of these performances were only preserved owing to the digital diligence of Kid Krupa; plus post-production work by myself and Vince Santini; with further mastering tricks squeezed out by Turan Audio in Oxford. The band line-up was quite fluid across the timeframe of these recordings, which were captured between 1979 and 1994 but, generally, Eugene contributes vocals and sax, Fay sings and plays Farfisa and I play Premier drums on all tracks. Additionally, all songs feature Kid Krupa on guitar and Vince Santini on bass unless otherwise noted. Backing vocals are supplied by Revette Cherie, joined by either Babs or Drax – except for Scuba Scuba and I Wanna Be Your Man – which feature Frankie and Polly Revette.

So – ladies and gentlemen of the jukebox jury – is this project a valid or inappropriate act? In my defence, I firmly believe this aural presentation to be a worthwhile endeavour. The aim was to assemble a final set of rarities to make an interesting collection of material available for completists.

But in the final analysis it falls to you to judge.

A1 Boom Boom Boom Boom
A2 Can I Have Some?
A3 Caveman Raveman
A4 Cool Jerk
A5 Scuba Scuba
A6 Hippy Hippy Sheik
A7 You Were Meant For Me
B1 I Wanna Be Your Man
B2 Big Boss
B3 Take Off
B4 Rollerskatin’
B5 Hungry For Love
B6 Do You Love Me?
B7 Mysterious Mutilators
B8 Rocking Goose